Wild Camping: Gaspé Do Your Homework | Sew areas News | The show

“Step one: Don’t take back the year 2020,” Gaspé’s mayor, Daniel Cote, launched from the start. Like many of his colleagues, at the height of the summer, the electors restricted interviews to major networks, requiring tourists to reserve and respect the area. This year, there is no doubt about a remake in this movie. Like many other communities, Gaspé has taken measures to prevent flooding, especially on its shores.

Overflowing camps are located in western Canada on the peninsula in anticipation of the summer. From Sainte-Anne-des-Monts to New Richmond, via Gaspé and Chandler, these sites to redirect campers in search of places to spend the night are part of the new “toolbox” adopted by the municipalities.

In addition to these new areas designated for campers without reservation, several municipalities have tightened municipal regulations governing recreational vehicles and their uses. The Quebec Secretariat is aware that it will be called upon to intervene, and confirms that it has planned additional resources for monitoring. We will help enforce the regulations. In high season, we are going in particular with full-time appointed agents for this file, ”says Eastern Quebec Communications Sgt Claude Duerron.“ With the new regulations, enforcement should be easier than last summer, ”he says.

Concerns among the special camp sites

However, these hundreds of new places available without reservation are far from attractive to the various private camps on the peninsula. Less expensive, easier to access and more flexible, these new spaces are viewed as unfair competition by many owners. The owner of the Côte Surprise campsite in Percy, Dennis Despres, fears, “It will kill the camping industry if you start getting it everywhere.” “I can’t afford $ 10 a night at camp, it just doesn’t work!”

He welcomes the mayor’s decision, who decided not to announce the location of the surplus and to give priority to private camp sites in Percy. “If we start advertising it, people will tell themselves that they don’t have to book and go straight. We must be consistent and respectful to our citizens who have been working there for years!” Judge Cathy Poirier.

The site will only be accessible if the nearby campsites are full. The same way things work in Gaspé. “We do not want to create fake camping sites. The mayor asserts, it is not our role to compete with the private sector.”

Attract campers to the city center

In Chandler, a few kilometers from Percy, we decided to go in the opposite direction. In recent weeks, the mayor has interviewed the national media to promote the new overflow camp site to be constructed on the site of the old Gaspésia plant, with a view of the sea.

“Our problem is a little different. For us, the problem is above all with the large vehicles that are being installed in our lovely rest areas, taking out chairs and barbecues and spending the day and night there,” said Deputy Mayor Bruno Pierre Godbot. In 22 different locations considered problematic, Gaspé’s second largest city will post an extended parking ban, with campers inviting an overflow site.